"When fantasies about Tom, Dick, or Harry start to set up house in our minds, all we have to do is to stop – but first, we have to want to stop. And that's the hard part. At heart, usually what we want is for the problem to go away, for the crush to stop bothering us and causing us pain. We hate the pain, but we don't hate the sin. And left to itself... it usually doesn't just go away. It often takes something shattering, like his marrying someone else, to end the fantasy.
"If you really want it to stop, you have to stop it yourself, right where it started – one thought, one fantasy, one feeling at a time. Intercepting each renegade emotion or imagination at the door. Every time temptation knocks, we are faced with a decision: to indulge in a few visions of a romantic movement with Brandon [or Justin], or to pray for Brandon's wife? To ruminate over every syllable of our last conversation with him, or to meditate on the Scripture passage we are memorizing (how's that coming, by the way)? To start dreaming up our perfect wedding dress, or to focus on learning a new skill that will actually make us a better wife?
"The purity of our thoughts and heart is something that we generate on a moment-by-moment, thought-by-thought basis. "Keep your heart with all vigilance," says Proverbs 4:23, "for from it flow the springs of life." The Webster's 1828 dictionary [my personal favorite!]'s definition of vigilance is, "Watchfully; with the attention to danger and the means of safety." [Can you tell why?]"
It's (Not That) Complicated by Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin
The Botkin sisters end the section with a very good piece of advice:
Our hearts need to have their brains turned on."
What about you guys? I'm not trying to pry or say that you're so sinful if you've had thoughts like that – I have, too! It revolutionized my thinking when I read this section in the chapter titled "The Heart: Victim or Perpetrator? Getting Your Heart to Follow YOU." (No pun intended... heehee....) It was one of those "Well, duh!!" moments in my life – if I don't want my thoughts to dwell on this guy, I've got to stop them. So simple, it's almost complicated. But in the Botkin sisters' book, they take it from being That Complicated to being Not That Complicated. (That's why I looooove this book! I'm going to review it on here someday, too....)
I think that this Teenage Model At Home needs to have her heart's brain turned on, too.
Again - your thoughts?
Eowyn~
PS: Happy Birthday, Daddy!! I just realized that in the video I'm adding has Tom Bosley in it! : P
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